It was a weekend of weekends. Two weekends before the third of my four siblings got married, we traveled west. Near Flood City, in the heart of Steelers Country. It’s beautiful this time of year. The trees are a myriad of different warm colors on their wooden palette, the temperatures are unnoticeable, football is in full swing and with the Steelers playing near flawless football, everyone is just a little bit happier. If Bedford County isn’t heaven, it’s close.

They say twenty-three is too young to be married. I say they’re fools. They say dumb things like “you gotta find yourself” and “you need to experience the world before you settle down”. Rubbish. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. It’s a hollow existence. I envy this 23 year old young man who in many ways is more mature than my thirty reckless years.

It was the last hurrah of bachelor-hood. One picturesque weekend of late night poker games, canoeing, fishing and relaxing along the winding Juniata river. Our number was fewer than expected, but it couldn’t have been better. Sometimes. Many times, less really is more.

As I grow older, there’s a growing appreciation for those who’ve surrounded me all these years. So many times it’s so easy to be so hard on our parents and our siblings. We expect perfection and are let down when they do not achieve it while we so easily forget that they, like we, are human. To forgive is truly divine.

Sometimes, it really is hard to say complimentary things toward those who are closest to us. We expect them to just know it. I’ve watched my brother grow into someone who I truly admire. And lately, I’ve finally started to appreciate my father. I realize I’m more like him than I ever realized and that he sacrificed a hell of a lot to give us opportunity that he never had.

It feels like a small stop off the interstate. Somewhere in the Midwest but maybe somewhere in the South. Two pumps and maybe that many cars in the parking lot. October drizzle falls like feathers in the softly lit night sky illuminated only by the lights humming over the pumps.

Summer. It’s gone.

We all left in search of something better somewhere else. Some of us found it, I suppose. Starting new always breaks something old and I realize I’m just like that something old. I sigh in the same manner and exclaim “Geeze!” at the same exact time during the Steelers games. I even complain the same way when something goes wrong at work. I’m even taking over the same job at the same age that he started twenty five years ago (The very job, that today, after learning he’d lost a company he’d spent most of those twenty five years working for, he said had finally reached its conclusion).